It'd be cool to have a system where a private citizen would be allowed to file a lawsuit if they thought the justifications didn't have evidence. So the case would look at the justifications, and if the state couldn't prove that self-pumping wasn't more dangerous, the case would immediately remove the law.
One justification for banning self-pumping gas is that it's a jobs program. Except that that reason was never included in the original policy. So under my "challenge the law" framework, that couldn't be used as a defense, unless the Oregon legislature actually amended it.
For the better part of 2 centuries, the legislative histories at the state and federal levels have included the justifications for the law, and the discussions wherein the evaluate different provisions. They keep these in different legislative records because they're significantly more voluminous than the laws themselves.
Like-- let's take on Oregon's statute banning self-pumping. Most of the reasons are safety related: https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/480.315
It'd be cool to have a system where a private citizen would be allowed to file a lawsuit if they thought the justifications didn't have evidence. So the case would look at the justifications, and if the state couldn't prove that self-pumping wasn't more dangerous, the case would immediately remove the law.
One justification for banning self-pumping gas is that it's a jobs program. Except that that reason was never included in the original policy. So under my "challenge the law" framework, that couldn't be used as a defense, unless the Oregon legislature actually amended it.